In Christology, the Person of Christ refers to the study of the human and divine natures of Jesus Christ as they co-exist within one person.[1] There is no direct discussion in the New Testament regarding the dual nature of the Person of Christ as both divine and human.[1] Hence, since the early days of Christianity theologians have debated various approaches to the understanding of these natures.[1]

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From the 2nd century onwards, the Christological approaches to defining the Person of Christ and how the human and divine elements interact and inter-relate resulted in debates among different Christian groups and produced schisms.[2][3]

In the period immediately following the Apostolic Age, specific beliefs such as Arianism and Docetism (polar opposites of each other) were criticized and eventually abandoned. Arianism which viewed Jesus as primarily an ordinary mortal was considered at first heretical in 325, then exonerated in 335 and eventually re-condemned as heretical at the First Council of Constantinople of 381. On the other end of the spectrum, Docetism argued that Jesus' physical body was an illusion, and that he was only a spiritual being. Docetic teachings were attacked by St. Ignatius of Antioch and were eventually abandoned by proto-orthodox Christians.[4][5]

Historically in the Alexandrian school of christology, Jesus Christ is the eternal Logos paradoxically humanized in history, a divine Person who became enfleshed, uniting himself to the human nature.[7] In contrast, the Antiochian school conceives of Jesus Christ as a complete human person with his own human nature mysteriously united at the moment of Incarnation to the eternal Logos and its divine nature.[7]

The First Council of Ephesus in 431 debated a number of views regarding the Person of Christ. The council was called by Cyril of Alexandria at the request of Pope Celestine I who was unhappy with Nestorius, who had previously been a preacher in Antioch, and his view that regarded the Person of Christ as having human nature disjointed from his divine nature. At the same gathering the council also debated the doctrines of monophysitism (i.e., the Person of Christ having only one divine nature which absorbed the human nature into itself) or miaphysitism (i.e., Cyril's formulation, the Person of Christ having one post-Incarnate nature derived from human and pre-Incarnate divine natures). The council rejected Nestorianism (i.e., the Person of Christ being two nominally associated natures corresponding to independently operative, divine and human hypostases—two Sons superficially unified by the title "Christ"—though in the present day it is widely acknowledged that this characterization of Nestorius' own highly nuanced christology is inaccurate) and adopted the term hypostatic union, referring to divine and human natures united indivisibly at the Incarnation in the one hypostasis of the divine Logos. The language used in the 431 declaration was further refined at the 451 Council of Chalcedon.[9][10][11][12]

Because Saint Augustine died in 430 he did not participate in the Council of Ephesus in 431 or Chalcedon in 451, but his ideas had some impact on both councils.[17] On the other hand, the other major theological figure of the Middle Ages, Thomas Aquinas, had much to say about the Person of Christ. In particular regarding the attributes of the union of the natures of Christ (as in Communicatio Idiomatum) Aquinas concluded that the union of the divine and the human in the Person of Christ is achieved in a manner that each maintains its own attributes.[18]

The Third Council of Constantinople in 680 held that both divine and human wills exist in Jesus, with the divine will having precedence, leading and guiding the human will.[19]

John Calvin maintained that there was no human element in the Person of Christ which could be separated from the person of The Word.[20] Calvin also emphasized the importance of the "Work of Christ" in any attempt at understanding the Person of Christ and cautioned against ignoring the Works of Jesus during his ministry.[21]

The study of the Person of Christ continued into the 20th century, with modern theologians such as Karl Rahner and Hans von Balthasar. Rahner pointed out the coincidence between the Person of Christ and The Word of God, referring to Mark 8:38 and Luke 9:26 which state that whoever is ashamed of the words of Jesus is ashamed of the Lord himself.[22] Balthasar argued that the union of the human and divine natures of Christ was achieved not by the "absorption" of human attributes but by their "assumption". Thus in his view the divine nature of Christ was not affected by the human attributes and remained forever divine.[23]